Globo-Womo Hype = Subsidy for ChiCom Dams

If that charlatan in the Oval Office makes good on the Hope of his dimbulb followers, we too can participate in this nonsense.

It is so good that European and American guilt can go to fuel the economy of the biggest threat to Civilization in modern times! It just makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

I love Blegojevich! Blogojovich?

The poster child for the Sons of Tito is at it again, this time claiming that it is all a big conspiracy to raise taxes, and that he, the fearless outsider is the only thing keeping these baddies from raping the common good. Tee hee hee hee hee...Haw haw haw haw...oh yes. The important thing is that the Democrat governor of Obama's adopted homestate who was selling Obama's Senate seat (without, of course, titter titter, Obama's people knowing nothing about it) stay in the headlines as much as possible.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am ready for Change!

The Poet and the Politician

I thought that Maya Angelou was the all-time winner of the crappiest poet title, until I heard today's inaugural poet.

As a confirmed anti-Democrat I thought, "Egads, nothing could be worse than this!" But then I realized that if McCain had won, the poetry would have been just as bad, just differently bad.

The problem is that our politicians, of both stripes, the Left Liberals and the Right Liberals, hate the poetic. They give lip service to culture and beauty, because it is a remnant of something they were taught once, or that their fathers were taught once, but that is where it ends. They give lip service to their God of the Spirit, but they really worship their Pracktical God, the God of the Material World. And this God of the Material World does not mind, for now, as what is most important is that strict compartmentalization. The True and the Beautiful are not on the same level as the Good and the Useful to these people.

That the True is the Good is the Beautiful and the source of all is the one God, this is so alien a concept to the Puritan that it goes beyond what they see is heresy. For the secular neo-puritan, heresy is over matters much smaller than this. For these Naderites and other of that ilk, heresy is the refusal to accept some bit of received wisdom regarding health or, by extension, the environment. For in the end the only beauty that the Puritan can tolerate is the ideal of cleanliness. And it is only in the ideal that it can be seen as beautiful. The actual thing is always with some flaw, some spot of dirt, some trace of dangerous chemicals. The faintest whisp of smoke mars the Pure!

Republican, Democrat, when it comes to the real culture war, both sides are the same. The Republicans make a slight nod to Tradition, so long as it does not get in the way of Progress! and Markets!, the Democrats make a slight nod to the Creative, so long as it never questions the assumptions of the Left.

And we will have bad poetry either way.

It was a dark and stormy night...or whatever...

Last night was neither dark nor stormy. A bright full moon shone through crystaline skies. It was, however, windy, and that wind carried warm air from the interior to us, causing a really strange phenomenon.

I am a night owl. I normally make my last espresso for the day at around 11pm and read for an hour or two. Last night I was cleaning up my email inbox, and writing some promotional text, and so forth, so I was at the computer. When I sat down, at around 11:30, the Desktop Weather said that it was 57 degrees.

I went about my tasks, and got up to have a little snack. When I got back the temperature was up to 58.

By the time I went to bed (around 1:30), it was 59.

"Egads," thought I, "if I stay up to three, will it be in the sixties?"

I don't think it actually got much warmer, and this morning the temperature was back down in the low 50's, but I don't think I have ever seen it get warmer between midnight and 1am.

Come for the Recipes...Stay for the Useless Advice!

I was always told, and always believed, that in cold weather it was essential to wear a hat. We all know: you lose XX% of your body heat through your head, where XX=big. I have always followed that rule, being a former Boy Scout and all.

However, last week we went up to the snow, and I forgot a hat. Oops. Let me tell you: everything that you have been warned about in regards to hats and cold weather is true. Amazingly true. The wind going through your hair is, well, chilling. Really chilling. Also, don't forget sunglasses or goggles when zipping down hills during a snow flurry.

You would think I was from the tropics or something.

It really was a good illustration of the heat-loss capacity of the head. However, it is an experiment I don't recommend repeating. Just take my word for it. Wear a hat.

One good thing about freezing within a stone's throw of Donner Pass is that when you get back to more temperate climes you have some perspective. Yes, it is cold in Vallejo, but it could be much worse.

Which brings me to anthropology. Whyever did my ancestors leave whatever place they were originally from and wander north of the Alps? Note that only half of my ancestors did such a foolish thing, but what were they thinking? And then, when they finally flew the coop, why did they come to Pennsylvania? Fortunately my Grandfather had some sense, and he came to the Promised Land, so that subsequent generations could have the priviledge of being native sons (although only this generation is a Native Son).

I have been thinking about this, as I have been reading Ivan Doig's excellent book Dancing at the Rascal Fair, a novel about Scotsmen who settled in Montana (talk about another thing to put cold weather in perspective - as I gripe about 40 degrees I am reading about white out blizzards and frost bite and all other sorts of unloveliness). Sure I can understand the appeal of free land, but there are limits (and reasons that the land is free, too). I simply cannot fathom why a nation would ever invade its Northern neighbor, and yet the Glory of Romanitas is full of Northward Conquest.

The One Month Gap

When one goes a whole month without posting, and it is not because of an extended trip to the wilderness, the question has to come up...is the blog dead? Barely breathing?

What went wrong? Was it something we said?

No, no. Nothing like that. It is a variety of factors, but really, one big factor: Facebook. You see, facebook has these word games: Scramble. Word Twist. Challenge Sudoku. The blog doesn't. And, when I slap myself in the forehead for spending too much time on Scramble, Sudoku, Word Twist, I don't slap myself for neglecting the blog, rather, I slap myself for neglecting the studio.

I am working on a new series of paintings, and have started to write the materials for the exciting on-line adventure my work will be taking (soon, hopefully). I have also started doing serious studies of equine anatomy. You see, Amalia is taking riding lessons, and that means that I am around horses a lot. Their forequarter musculature is really interesting, by the way. Stop over for a coffee, and I will show you the sketchbook.

But, anyway, there you have it.

I have been thinking about the blog, even the inevitable question, but the answer?

I am not officially shutting down the blog. Not yet. And I am not promising anything, because a promise this time of year sounds like a New Year's resolution, and I hate New Year's resolutions.

Anyway, Happy New Year! Check back here in a week, and you will have an idea of what is going to happen here.